Well known author, David Allen, has a great quote for getting things done - “Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they started.” The same holds true for many marketers planning for the next year. If you wait until the end of the year to start planning for 2017, you’ve already missed the boat.

Here at Revenue River Marketing, when we start working with a new client, we utilize an onboarding process in which we gather information about the client, set goals, campaign strategies, and timelines. This is also a good place to start with your marketing planning. Experts agree planning early can be vital to better achieving your critical targets while helping align your marketing strategy more closely with long-term business goals. The Revenue River team are not procrastinators! We are continually planning for and implementing our digital marketing solutions. We do it with our clients and with our own marketing strategies. I’m going to share some helpful tips that we follow to make sure we are on top of all our marketing planning. This is not something that you can finish in a day, so let’s get started!

Analyze and Assess Your Current Plans

A good place to start is by gathering information from your previous year’s marketing programs. Which campaigns are working? Which campaigns need to be tweaked? How effective were these campaigns in achieving their intended purpose? This should result in attainable and measurable preliminary ideas and a budget range. This step is integral in the success of our marketing campaigns and will be with your yearly marketing plan as well. Companies that put data at the center of their marketing and sales decisions improve their marketing return on investment by 15-20 percent.

Set Goals for 2017

Now that you’ve assessed your current marketing programs, it’s time to leverage these to set marketing goals for 2017. Determine what you want your marketing strategy to achieve in the next year. Remember that these goals should be specific, measurable, and attainable. You should set year-long goals, but also break these down in quarterly and monthly goals. This way, you can monitor your progress towards your yearly goals and adjust your marketing strategies where needed.

Develop Strategies

Now it’s time to develop strategies. Don’t put tactics before strategies. Doing that could mean you’re putting marketing dollars in the wrong place. Writing a piece of content or producing a video is a tactic, or the means to the end. Your strategy should dictate what tactics are done, how they are done, when they are done and why.Develop strategies for all of your buyer personas based on where they are at in the buyer’s journey. These strategies will be implemented throughout the year to meet the goals you’ve already outlined.

Set Your Marketing Budget

You have done your research, set your marketing goals, and developed strategies. It’s time to determine your budget. It’s fine to have an estimate of your budget at the beginning of the planning process, but now is the time to finalize that based on your marketing goals along with your company’s strategic goals and vision for growth. If you set the budget before determining your strategy, you’re at the mercy of your budget as opposed to defining the budget with your marketing strategy as the driver. Decide where you want to spend your money. What can you do internally? What needs to be outsourced? An analysis of your current campaigns’ strengths and weaknesses could potentially undercover opportunities for redistribution. Learning what works and doesn’t work allows you to allocate marketing dollars more wisely.

And there you have it! Pat yourself on the back if you have already started planning for 2017. If you have not, what are you waiting for? Planning is a big task and critical to your success! You don’t have to go at it alone. Enlist the help of Denver digital marketing agency, Revenue River Marketing, to ensure you are covering all the bases to have a successful year of marketing in 2017.

Meghan moved out to Colorado after graduating from Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. She has over 8 years of combined marketing experience in the commercial real estate industry and with product sampling promotions. When Meghan has free time, she enjoys exercising, checking out her favorite bands at local music venues and spending time with her husband, 2 young girls, and their dog, Chaco.